At Home on the Galilee

It was nearly dinner time when we arrived at Maa'gan Holiday Village on the South Shore of  Lake Gennesaret, known to some of us better as the Sea of Galilee.

 I was eager to drop my stuff in my room and take in the scene and to try to connect my presence in 2018 to two thousand years before me. This was to be a different experience from the ordinary hotel. It was more like, well, a high end camp. Ma'agen was, or is, a kibbutz but it also is a place for vacationers. It also reminded me of a retreat house, where you have everything you need, a little living room, a little kitchenette, a bedroom and a bathroom,. And outside my bedroom window, the shoreline of the place where Jesus called Peter the fisherman.

Probably the shoreline has receded some since those days, and the Israeli government is restricting fishing on the Lake so as to restore the population to be fished. But this water was the center of much of the ministry of Jesus Christ. We would spend two nights here and during the days would travel through and around the perimeter where miracles happened and a particular too short earthly life was led to unveil Life Eternal. I know. I sound all "holy roller" here, but you know what, if it is true, as I believe, it is pretty awesome stuff not in the LA valley girl sense, but in the sense of breathtaking, astounding, stupendous, daunting, fearsome to use some of the dictionary terms. If this is true, all of this story that has become the source of amusement to far too many, then there are no earthly words to describe it. But I digress. . . .

After dinner, another cornucopia of Mediterranean delights, I wanted to get back to my cottage so I could go sit outside. A few of us, not having any idea where the path to the shore was, decided to go through a rather circuitous route of mud and reeds to get to the shore. We could see very little; some lights in the distance, and a bit of the lapping water, but it was enough. We were here. We were in another marvelous place where spiritual history unfolded. I liked this place because here and around it was where His life had been, before the events of Calvary. He was a Young Man with an Extraordinary mission among ordinary people and now I was connected to it, not from the distance of 7000 miles, but on the spot, or close enough thereto!

After our little group of women separated I decided to sit outside my room on the white wooden chairs. It was still warm enough with a light jacket, and I prayed the rosary. It's funny. Here I was raised a Catholic but growing up, the rosary was little a part of my prayer life. In fact, save for what we did in school, Mass every First Friday, the Baltimore Catechism before it was replaced by Jesus Christ Superstar, I did not do much praying. It wasn't part of our family life, though I am ever grateful my parents put me on the theological road formally. Only in the last few years have I recited the decades. And even then, I do so always antsy, with difficulty. But that night I stayed and looked around in disbelief that a girl from the Bronx was sitting in front of the body of water upon which Jesus walked, upon which He calmed the storm and the Apostles' fear, and I prayed five decades in gratitude.

I have sleep issues usually, but that night and most every night of my trip, except the first, I slept easily and peacefully, and woke up at 6 a.m. to find the easy path (now in daylight) to the shore. There were very few people there. I was grateful again. Someone had carved this into the sand.

The nature of the day's weather was ambiguous at sunrise. There was the sun but there were also some clouds. Some rain had been predicted.  It didn't matter. We were going to be taking a boat ride to another shore, and I hoped for it to be clement enough, although I thought about the fact that this "Sea" could turn quite nasty in a storm. Somehow I wasn't particularly worried, a enjoyable rarity. I would wait, and see, and it would be sufficient.

Morning sun over the hills at Ma'agan Village on the Galilee

The shore teaming with shells.

I took my little pink book of meditations and prayers, homemade in that I have for several years pasted into its blank pages sayings and parts of books that have moved me to thinking of things "above", or have consoled me in difficult times and walked for about a half hour, or more, before breakfast. Then after breakfast we went to the landing where there were boats for our trip to the area of the Church of the Beatitudes and the Church of Peter's Primacy. 

There weren't a lot of tourist boats out yet, or maybe it was that we were getting to a quieter end of season. Either way, even with some of the tourist trappings (T-Shirts and tchotkes being sold, and some canned religious music) it was about a close a connection to Christ in Life as I would feel during the trip. One of the images I have found helpful to me in darker times is the one where Christ is asleep in one of the ancient boats (ours was mostly wood, but clearly not ancient, and yet it felt right) when a storm on the Lake is roaring. He is not disturbed but His disciples are in a tizzy (as I can surely say I would have been). When He is awakened He says to them, "O Yea of Little Faith. Why are you so afraid?"  From my perspective today, in the here and now, I have pretended that I wasn't afraid because He was there. And on that modern wooden-ish boat, I thought strongly of that moment. For some 45 minutes we crossed the water where Jesus sailed (we were of course motor assisted). It was joyful. 

There was a little rain and that felt like a kind of a punctuation to the occasion, a spiritual blessing, if you will.

By the time that we would arrive at the other side, the weather began to improve.

Or that's how I remember it.

At the Church of the Beatitudes:

The sun did indeed come out..

one can imagine this is where the Beatitudes were preached

Onto the Church of Peter's Primacy:

Another image I like to conjure, when I am kind of doing a personal decade of the Rosary with Mysteries not official. It is after the Resurrection. The Apostles are fishing and again on the Sea of Galilee and again having trouble. They see a man on the shore and he tells them to throw their nets on another side. They do and while The Man waits for them on the shore, He cooks for them.

Peter realizes, "It is the Lord!" He jumps right in the water as the rest of the men bring the ship to shore. Here is established the Primacy of Peter, as Christ asks him three times, "Simon Peter, do you love me?" Peter seems to have failed the three questions to the denial over which he had bitterly cried and repented. 

"Lord, you know I love you!"

And from thence the quiet command of Jesus to Peter:  "Feed my sheep."

This was another spot that really drew me and brought to life this happy part of the founding of Christianity. 

The thing is, in every one of these places, it would have been possible to stay for days, to savor the sense of timelessness.  

I realize there are a couple place connected with the Galilee to note, Caparnaum among them. But the time has come to pause. More to come!